James Gurney

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

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or by email:gurneyjourney (at) gmail.comSorry, I can't give personal art advice or portfolio reviews. If you can, it's best to ask art questions in the blog comments.

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All images and text are copyright 2015 James Gurney and/or their respective owners. Dinotopia is a registered trademark of James Gurney. For use of text or images in traditional print media or for any commercial licensing rights, please email me for permission.

However, you can quote images or text without asking permission on your educational or non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page as long as you give me credit and provide a link back. Students and teachers can also quote images or text for their non-commercial school activity. It's also OK to do an artistic copy of my paintings as a study exercise without asking permission.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Look what someone accidentally left in a laundromat in Italy—a working prototype of Apple’s much-rumored new iBox, ahead of the official launch.

It’s a lot smaller than the MacBook Pro, and even a bit narrower than the iPad. The design of the outside is very simple, with no connection ports at all. It keeps to the same simple brushed aluminum look with rounded corners. It’s a bold step into the wireless, portable, creative suite market.

When you open up the hinged upper lid, the iBox interior is filled with 29 different graphic art tools, each of which responds to a variety of hand movements. The interfaces are fairly intuitive, with a variety of mark-making potential.

Problems: The hue range is limited. The receptive surfaces will be sold separately by third party vendors. And the the gray undo tool isn’t compatible with all the rendering devices.

I built my own PC (pencil carrier) way back in third grade. The shell is old school, but the great thing about PCs is you can upgrade the hardware so easily. I feel I need more RAM though, I'm having a hard time thinking of several things at once while drawing.

I'm a bit ashamed to say it, but I've been working digital so much lately that sometimes when I work on a traditional piece, I find myself searching for my familiar keyboard shortcuts. (Same thing happens with writing--but I'm sure we all wish writing paper had at least a search tool.)

It doesn't happen so often now that I paint daily with "classic" tools, but when I painted almost only on the PC, whenever I did a bad stroke on an easel, I searched quickly for the "undo" option. It always pissed me to find I was in real world...